Talking Miss Universe Pageant With Shandi Finnessey

If you look at Miss America, which continues to lose ratings, they obviously are missing something. The reason I think that Miss USA and Miss Universe still work is because they’re so relevant. We change with the times and so you see a girl who wins Miss USA or becomes Miss Universe and she’s not only someone who’s obviously very striking and beautiful; she has a message to talk about. As soon as a girl wins Miss USA she becomes a national spokesperson for breast and ovarian cancer and as soon as a woman is chosen as Miss Universe she becomes an advocate for Aids and HIV Awareness. And so not only is she making a difference but she’s very relevant. _Shandi Finnessey: Former Miss USA



Shandi Finnessey: 2011 MISS UNIVERSE® Pageant Commentator

Former Miss USA
By: Daedrian McNaughton

Shandi Finnessey joins the 2011 MISS UNIVERSE® Pageant as Commentator, alongside STYLE Network’s Jeannie Mai. Crowned Miss USA 2004 in Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre before a live audience of 13 million viewers, Shandi will draw from her experience as Miss USA and first runner-up at the 2004 MISS UNIVERSE® Pageant.

Miss Colombia made the news recently for being photographed not wearing underwear. What would your advice be to her for this pageant?

Shandi Finnessey: Oh, that’s funny. I had not heard that. Well, I think that if it doesn’t work for her at Miss Universe she could always move to Hollywood because that’s what Paris did and Brittany and it worked pretty well for them.


Why do you think pageants still work and are so popular?

Shandi Finnessey: I don’t think it always does. If you look at Miss America, which continues to lose ratings, they obviously are missing something. The reason I think that Miss USA and Miss Universe still work is because they’re so relevant. We change with the times and so you see a girl who wins Miss USA or becomes Miss Universe and she’s not only someone who’s obviously very striking and beautiful; she has a message to talk about. As soon as a girl wins Miss USA she becomes a national spokesperson for breast and ovarian cancer and as soon as a woman is chosen as Miss Universe she becomes an advocate for Aids and HIV Awareness. And so not only is she making a difference but she’s very relevant. She’s a girl that you would want to see somewhere and want to be friends with and want to hang out with and she’s sexy, she’s opinionated and she embraces all of that. Last year Miss USA’s photos that they took just at the pageant, there was so much controversy because they were so sexy. But that’s relevant, that’s for the times and I think that’s why it still works.

As a commentator, what tips would you offer the ladies?

Shandi Finnessey: The number one thing that gives a girl the ‘it’ factor and makes her stand out is confidence. Obviously all these girls are beautiful. They’ve already won their pageant in their home country and they’re considered the icon of beauty from wherever they’re from. So it’s the girl who’s really confident in her own skin and the one that stands out because of that. And I don’t think personally that the final question matters too much because by that point you’ve already seen the girl compete in so many different phases of competition that you already know who probably could handle the job of being Miss Universe to the best of their ability. And I think that the final question personally only comes into play when you’re really torn between two girls. Obviously if one girl completely flubs the last question then she could fall on her ranking but otherwise I don’t think it weighs as much as what people think.


In this stage in the pageant, what do the women do to calm their nerves?

Shandi Finnessey: It’s different for everyone. I ate a bunch of candy because for the interview I ate a bunch of peppermint candies because I wanted the peppermint to kind of calm my nerves but the sugar to give me a little sugar rush so that I had a lot of energy. But I also did a lot of like deep breathing and on the nights before I went to bed I would do some meditation just to kind of calm myself. But it’s like a sisterhood. It’s almost like a sorority with all the girls, a very elite sorority, and so you just sort of bond with them and laugh it out and that kind of helps with the nerves.


How do you recover from a pageant faux pas?

Shandi Finnessey: We’ve had two Miss USAs that have fallen on stage during the competition and I think they both handled it really well because I mean one girl, she took a really strong fall and it looked like it actually hurt even and she just got up and just kind of smiled and just laughed at the situation. If something like that happens it’s really out of your control and all you can do is just have grace through the situation. But I think a faux pas that some girls often take is that they want to be really edgy with their wardrobe and they want to have a gown that stands out. And instead of doing something simple where you see the girl’s beauty, you end up seeing tons of material or like sequins or tassels hanging from their garment and it’s distracting. And I think that’s probably the biggest faux pas that we often see.


What would you suggest in terms of wardrobe choices for the ladies?

Shandi Finnessey: It varies depending on really who you ask. I actually had just arrived in Sao Paulo a few hours ago and I was looking through; they gave me like a huge binder full of the girls’ bios and photos and it’s got a picture of them in swimsuit and in their gowns. So I’m already able to see kind of what their gowns look like and it’s a really wide variety. Some pretty basic and simple, some that’s very elegant and some that’s more high fashion and runway and then some that are just really trying to make a statement. They’re making an edge with either just a crazy design or cutout materials and it’s going to be really beautiful to watch. I like simple with a great fit. Nothing beats a really great fit on a dress or any wardrobe. And as long as it’s simple then you don’t want a girl to come out and go wow, look at that dress. You want her to come out and you want to say wow, look at that girl. And so something that just compliments her and usually that’s going a little bit more simple.

What do you think of the questions that the contestants are being asked ?

Shandi Finnessey: The past few years we’ve been on a trend of just really tough, shocker questions, which is really great it shows a lot of people say oh, Miss USA, that’s just pretty girls like Miss America’s the one with the substance. And it’s great to show wrong, like the Miss USA girls and Miss Universe girls, we not only look amazing in the swimsuit and gown but we have a brain to go along with it and we are college educated. And so it’s all over the board. It’s everything from just shocking questions, political questions, the faux pas questions that no one wants to even really talk about. It’s just all over the board and that’s actually become one of the more interesting parts of the pageant now to watch because we’ve seen kind of the mix-ups that have happened in the past and we’ve heard the South Carolina answer and then the Carrie Prejean answer so it’s going to be really interesting to see what the girls say.

 

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